Boon and bane: Layyah ‘dyke’ breach inundates 12 villages

Irrigation Dept says residents had built Basti Sarai dyke on their own.

MULTAN:

Twelve villages were inundated and more than 30,000 acres of crops destroyed after a dyke on River Indus breached in Layyah sub-district.

The Basti Sarai dyke is one of the extensions of Seepar Band Jhakkar, a dyke built on Shahwala Barrage.

Basti Sarai dyke, built by local residents on self-help basis, was swept away by the Indus water on Friday evening. The breach had expanded to 400 feet by Saturday afternoon, and it continued to widen into the night.

The district administration said it was ascertaining the damage inflicted by the breach, as hundreds of families awaited the government’s help to evacuate the area.

Residents claimed that the government had not started any major relief and rescue operation, although Layyah District Coordination Officer (DCO) Nadeemur Rehman said the authorities were helping the people in the affected area.

The river water had first flooded Basti Sarai village and inundated 11 other villages by Saturday night. Hundreds of small villages in the west of Layyah were in danger of being submerged unless the breach was plugged, residents said.

Thousands of fields of rice, sugarcane and cotton had been flooded.

Civil society activists in Layyah said they feared an outbreak of dengue and gastroenteritis in the next few days unless urgent measures were taken.

According to residents of the flooded areas, around 36,000 people had been affected due to the breach.

Some residents of Basti Sarai said Irrigation Department officials had been carrying out maintenance work at Seepar Band Jhakkar when the Basti Sarai dyke, only 50 feet from where they were working, breached. The officials did nothing to repair the breach, the residents said.

An official of the Irrigation Department said the dykes built by the government were given priority for repair and maintenance.

“Basti Sarai dyke is a privately raised dyke. We will attend to it on the orders of the authorities,” the official told The Express Tribune on condition of anonymity.

The water flow at Taunsa Barrage upstream was 2,40,000 cusecs on Saturday, according to officials. They said the water level would go up as rains were expected in the Punjab and northern areas of the country next week. Residents of the flooded areas demanded that Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif order steps to protect them and their crops and livestock.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 29^th, 2014.